Castles and palaces around the world are structures of grandeur, might and beauty.
From the flamboyance of Germany’s fairy tale-Neuschwanstein Castle to the gothic, Dracula-inspiring Bran Castle, perched high in the craggy peaks of Romania’s Carpathian Mountains; Tokyo’s Imperial Palace, previously home to samurai warriors to Ireland’s Blarney Castle, where ‘the gift of the gab’ will be granted to any who kiss its stone, the world’s castles and palaces are steeped in history and stories to tell.
Travel writer and journalist Gilly Pickup shares these stories, providing a tour of 50 of the world’s greatest castles and palaces, filled with humour, interesting facts and tips on how best to visit them.
Writers’ relationships with their surroundings are seldom straightforward. While some, like Jane Austen and Thomas Mann, wrote novels set where they were staying (Lyme Regis and Venice respectively), Victor Hugo penned Les Misérables in an attic in Guernsey and Noël Coward wrote that most English of plays, Blithe Spirit, in the Welsh holiday village of Portmeirion.
Award-winning BBC drama producer Adrian Mourby follows his literary heroes around the world, exploring 50 places where great works of literature first saw the light of day. At each destination – from the Brontës’ Yorkshire Moors to the New York of Truman Capote, Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin to the now-legendary Edinburgh café where J.K. Rowling plotted Harry Potter’s first adventures – Mourby explains what the writer was doing there and describes what the visitor can find today of that great moment in literature.
Rooms of One’s Own takes you on a literary journey from the British Isles to Paris, Berlin, New Orleans, New York and Bangkok and unearths the real-life places behind our best-loved works of literature.
Apply the wisdom of philosophers to become a happier person.
What is happiness? What makes you happy?Is there more to life than happiness?
Learn to cultivate your taste for pleasure, free yourself from the various disturbances of life, and overcome irrational expectations that cause distress. Go with the flow and rediscover the joy of existence.
Filled with exercises, tips and case studies, this Practical Guide will enable you to see happiness in a new light, with the help of the world’s greatest minds
Writers’ relationships with their surroundings are seldom straightforward. While some, like Jane Austen and Thomas Mann, wrote novels set where they were staying (Lyme Regis and Venice respectively), Victor Hugo penned Les Misérables in an attic in Guernsey and Noël Coward wrote that most English of plays, Blithe Spirit, in the Welsh holiday village of Portmeirion.
Award-winning BBC drama producer Adrian Mourby follows his literary heroes around the world, exploring 50 places where great works of literature first saw the light of day. At each destination – from the Brontës’ Yorkshire Moors to the New York of Truman Capote, Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin to the now-legendary Edinburgh café where J.K. Rowling plotted Harry Potter’s first adventures – Mourby explains what the writer was doing there and describes what the visitor can find today of that great moment in literature.
Rooms of One’s Own takes you on a literary journey from the British Isles to Paris, Berlin, New Orleans, New York and Bangkok and unearths the real-life places behind our best-loved works of literature.
Castles and palaces around the world are structures of grandeur, might and beauty.
From the flamboyance of Germany’s fairy tale-Neuschwanstein Castle to the gothic, Dracula-inspiring Bran Castle, perched high in the craggy peaks of Romania’s Carpathian Mountains; Tokyo’s Imperial Palace, previously home to samurai warriors to Ireland’s Blarney Castle, where ‘the gift of the gab’ will be granted to any who kiss its stone, the world’s castles and palaces are steeped in history and stories to tell.
Travel writer and journalist Gilly Pickup shares these stories, providing a tour of 50 of the world’s greatest castles and palaces, filled with humour, interesting facts and tips on how best to visit them.
James Bamber and Sally Raynes provide an indispensable guide to the UK's most absurd, bizarre and even foolhardy – but curiously British – 'sports' imaginable.From Cheshire's World Worm-Charming Championships to the cricket match played on a sand bank in the Solent every year, there's a rarely-spoken-of British tradition of holding very strange contests and weird world championships in which getting muddy, sick and a little upset are not mere side effects but positively celebrated. Welcome to the wacky nation…James and Sally present 50 of the oddest contests you'd never imagined existed. With a strong practical, get-involved-if-you-dare streak, "Wacky Nation" charts these unusual days out, with ratings for Spectator Fun, Pain Factor, Training Required, Chance of Becoming World Champion and more. There are tips on winning or simply remaining unscathed, based on the intrepid authors' own experiences, alongside numerous absurdly comic anecdotes.Keen to chase a Double Gloucester down a hill? Desperate to learn the fine arts of skiting and gurning? Harbour a strong desire to hold the World Nettle-Eating title? Wacky Nation is here to help.A sports-book-gone-wrong fortified with a strong dose of Monty Phython, "Wacky Nation" is both the potential start of some oddly British family fun and a sneak armchair look into the twisted world of bizarre British life.
James Bamber and Sally Raynes provide an indispensable guide to the UK's most absurd, bizarre and even foolhardy – but curiously British – 'sports' imaginable.From Cheshire's World Worm-Charming Championships to the cricket match played on a sand bank in the Solent every year, there's a rarely-spoken-of British tradition of holding very strange contests and weird world championships in which getting muddy, sick and a little upset are not mere side effects but positively celebrated. Welcome to the wacky nation…James and Sally present 50 of the oddest contests you'd never imagined existed. With a strong practical, get-involved-if-you-dare streak, "Wacky Nation" charts these unusual days out, with ratings for Spectator Fun, Pain Factor, Training Required, Chance of Becoming World Champion and more. There are tips on winning or simply remaining unscathed, based on the intrepid authors' own experiences, alongside numerous absurdly comic anecdotes.Keen to chase a Double Gloucester down a hill? Desperate to learn the fine arts of skiting and gurning? Harbour a strong desire to hold the World Nettle-Eating title? Wacky Nation is here to help.A sports-book-gone-wrong fortified with a strong dose of Monty Phython, "Wacky Nation" is both the potential start of some oddly British family fun and a sneak armchair look into the twisted world of bizarre British life.
